


Batter my heart

by FrozenBrownie



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 1914, Albus making a Big Mistake, Gellert being gentle with him while internally screaming, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm Sorry, Idiots in Love, London wasn't harmed in this production, M/M, Mentions of First Worldwar, Minor Character Death, Reunion, This is kinda dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 19:54:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17310827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrozenBrownie/pseuds/FrozenBrownie
Summary: To the casual passer-by, London might have seemed a bit chaotic on that autumn day in 1914. Depending on that passer-by being a Muggle or a Wizzard (or a Witch, for that matter), maybe panic would have been in order.No, this was not the terrible war taking over the heart of the British Isles. It simply was another duel escalating, somebody dying and the greatest wizzard of his time breaking down entirely. Oh well, Gellert might have had to fix this, and fast, didn't he?





	Batter my heart

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there!  
> I'm back with another piece of Grindeldore hell and you might scream at my all you want in the comments. Come say hi on tumblr: [dreamingbrownie](https://dreamingbrownie.tumblr.com/)  
> Thank you again so much to [bloodbetrothed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfinitySoldier/pseuds/bloodbetrothed) for proof reading. <3   
> Enjoy, folks!

“Sir? There's something that you'd like to know, I think, it's not exactly a message, Sir, but..."  
“Out with it, then!" Gellert spat, not once faltering in his fluent movements over the cauldron. This potion was far too advanced to not get his full attention without a second of delay. It smelled so strongly of decay, the messenger, barely out of boyhood, turned his head away from the small chamber in which Gellert had his laboratory set up. No use for a lot of space when he'd blow it up eventually anyway. Albus had always been better at potions.   
“Sir, ah, the Ministry of Magic, uhm... collapsed. Almost. Is on the verge of collapsing. There was a duel, I'm sure there's gonna be casualties. It’s basically a big hole in the middle of London, the Muggles won't like that so much, I think." The spoon with which he had been stirring exactly 23 times counter-clockwise clattered onto the table, splattering gruesome droplets of a liquid that wasn't yet a perfect poison. Still, it ate through the wood like butter.  
Gellert swivelled where he stood so sharply that the boy stumbled back a few steps, fear clearly visible on his beardless face. He wasn't so ugly, but a fool in thinking he could gain Gellert's attention with loose clothes and a pretty smile.   
“What? A duel? The forces necessary to bring down the very magic holding the bloody Ministry upright-"  
“Yes, Sir, _exactly_." It took a second or two, but once he was able to breathe again, it felt like drinking the sweetest wine in over a decade.  
“Well, let's see who the unfortunate soul about to be buried under twenty stories of rubble is, shall we?"  
  
London was bloody lucky that he recently took a fancy to Edinburgh. The spitefulness in staying right under England's nose, and at the heart of its secret enemy, no less, brought a smile to his lips with every sunrise. Other than that, of course, the city was beautiful. He felt at home between the medieval buildings leaning so close together that they seemed to whisper, share their secrets, their mortar falling from the very walls between mismatched stones holding them upright. Edinburgh was so full of ghosts, you couldn't cross a street in the evenings without catching a glance at one. Not (exclusively) speaking of the war raging on the continent, it was nice to have some peace here.   
Walking to the edges of this withering beauty to Apparate so as not to be observed by a prying soul was unnerving at best, hindering, bothersome at worst. Of course no-one could guarantee whom Gellert would find in London's depths (if they still existed once he got there) but that tingling sensation just behind his forehead told him everything he had to know.   
  
London, of course, was already in chaos when he arrived unseen. Their statute of secrecy had been blown to smithereens by a smoke arising just next to the Thames, over the East End, no less. To evacuate the borough of the poor, the immigrants, the lowest of the lowest of society; impossible, absolutely unthinkable. A pearl coloured dragon burst through the river banks with a deafening roar, dripping wet, and consequently took some houses, some parks, perhaps even a tourist or two with him. Oh, the chaos in the dirty streets was marvellous and Gellert couldn't help but listen to his frantic heartbeat in that unobserved alleyway. He was standing in dirt and rubble, rats fleeing at his feet to a safety no longer existent. Wizards poured from their holes left and right, wands on point, hopeless, devastated, in panic.   
  
“Albus, my Albus,” he mumbled, shaking his head fondly and made his way through the city. There had to be a way to get underground without using the official entrance which was so surely out of working order as the setting sun threw darkness over the whole scene.  
Where Muggles crossed his way, he either threw them out of his stride with a casual wave of his wand, wizards recognizing him were dealt with by a brief silencing spell cast nonverbally. He had no patience dealing with idiots. Later, all of that; this was a chance beyond all that he could have imagined in his wildest dreams, but first, he had to save his naïve husband from being crushed by stone. It had all been a terrible accident, he was sure of that, but they'd deal with the inevitable guilt later.   
Damn it all, if he only hadn't run, all those years ago, if he would have waited even one night for Albus... He wouldn't have had to go through all of this on his own. No one escaped destiny. Absolutely no one.   
  
Standing at the edge of the hole in the ground of London, Gellert took a peek down, but other than a dizzying blackness, nothing was to be seen. His white hair, cut to chin length, fell around his face like a curtain, shielding his vision from the running Londoners who just lost their homes and loved ones. Pity, that. A man in a floor-long coat stepped beside him, apparently about to do the same as Gellert was contemplating: jumping.   
“Excellent idea, my friend." The guy only briefly had time to be afraid, then he was pushed into the abyss without much force. “Two, three, four, five, six..."  
A body hit something quite heavily with a sickening crunch that echoed from the crumbling walls. Water fell freely into those depths, but there was nothing coming out of it. No light, no more dragons or other creatures chained by the Ministry of Magic. Gellert nodded, satisfied by his quick calculation. Turning around, he made a sweeping movement with both hands, thus pushing people running at him out of the way and bowed to those gaping at him. Oh, this time, he wasn't the conductor of this mesmerizing chaos, but as good as. If he was right.   
With arms spread wide and his face turned upwards to the heavy grey clouds, he let go of every control and just... fell. Fell deeply, fell anew for Albus. The rush of adrenaline kicked his heartbeat into his throat and he only had seconds to ponder his own mortality. With his wand, the Elder Wand grasped tightly in his right hand, he whispered an “Arresto Momentum!" into the air ripped from his lips, became slow and light as a feather sinking to the ground and landed perfectly on his own two feet. An easy entrance to a more complicated problem. Muggles angry at the magical community because unfortunately, their pulsing (stinking, dirty, ugly) city had collapsed due to a rupture in spellwork of centuries long gone just wouldn't do. So he did the only sensible thing: He sealed the hole that the dragon had caused with a powerful, shimmering shield that wouldn't hold for longer than a night, but that was enough. He didn't have to do the rest alone.   
Albus. His wonderful, gorgeous Albus kneeled at the centre of a black chamber larger than Durmstrang's feasting hall, a whole church would have fit in here. Rows over rows of storeys, sealed with glass and bars, gave the impression to stand at the foot of an inverted skyscraper. At the very bottom of that dark abyss lay a figure so still, so utterly unmoved that there was no doubt as to what had happened. Why Albus kneeled almost cramping, curled up with rounded shoulders over that corpse, however, only came to him when he made a few necessary steps into his line of sight. Aberforth. The simpleton. Morgana be damned, now that was inconvenient.  
  
“Albus?" he called very softly, sheathed his wand and held his hands where Albus could see them. If he saw anything at all. Magic was seething from his skin, his fine suit slit in numerous places and he was bleeding in just as many, not heavily, but steadily. He'd have to fix that very soon. His wavy auburn hair, flowing to his elbows openly now, was in complete disarray and his fingers shaking so violently that no wand could have survived it. The worst, however, were his eyes. Gellert couldn't turn away, but looking, simply enduring it, was... painful to say the least. Albus' heavenly blue eyes were ablaze and completely unseeing, staring at some empty corner filled with people in various states of dying. The mist emanating from his fingertips also bled from his eyelids in tears, but without sound, without sob.   
“Albus, love," Gellert tried again and willed himself not to show his amazement just yet, or touch him, either. “You have to come back from wherever you are right now. It's not real, but I am. Do you remember me, love?" Nothing. No start, no shout, not even his name. Now this was just intolerable. Gellert threw all caution into the wind and sunk onto his knees, hitting the ground a bit too hard. The polished black stone mirrored every movement in a dark reflection.   
“Albus Dumbledore, this is quite enough now," he said very firmly and cradled Albus' white face in his palms. Heavens, but it hurt, it burned. Pure magic dancing all around him so unchecked, he had last seen at... At. When. That day. Well.   
“Albus!" A slap across his face, not too forcefully but certainly not gently, either, and he was propelled all across the damned Atrium by his own stupidity.  
He landed between soft bodies and his coat was almost instantly ruined by a puddle of blood. Groaning, he got up as fast as he dared. Hadn't he learned not to underestimate Albus fifteen years ago? Neither force nor words of love would work, this time, because if Albus was master of even one of the many arts of magic, it was protection. Growing up with Ariana, he guessed, did that to one.   
“Alright, fine, we're most likely about to get pestered by Aurors and whoever survived this mess, I need to know exactly what happened and I urgently need you to come back to me." _In more than one way_ , he silently added and threw a Legilimens powerful enough to rip apart a lesser man's mind at the love of his life. Albus' mental shields were iron, of course, but that didn't stop him. They didn't practice brute force back then, after all. It took the gentle luring of a familiar touch to those walls, the complete absence of violent thoughts, something like deception wrapped around a core of honesty. He saw a crack and in he went.   
  
Normally, Albus' mind was a landscape, a castle as broad as Hogwarts, flooded by fog. High up in the tallest tower, the keep, he could make out a huddled figure behind a windowpane if he concentrated as strong as he could. The fogs and numerous other traps were steps to throw powerful practisers of Legilimency off guard, but Gellert knew them all. He had helped in creating them.   
_Albus, love, you're too lonely up there for my liking_ , he pleaded so very softly and felt a heavy weight sinking into his arms. Physically, it no longer hurt, but those disarrayed thoughts, scattered with the thorns of unspeakable disgust at his own beautiful mind and the black fabric of grief would have torn anybody apart by only glancing at it. Gellert withdrew a bit too fast, too hasty; he could do better, but the time for finesse was most definitely over.   
Albus took a shuddering breath as if waking up from a heart attack, his eyes fluttered shut and he would have fallen over without Gellert. To smile, maybe, was a bit out of place. Not that anybody would have been still with them to see it...   
“There you are," he crooned and pulled Albus up, the kneeling position hurt too much for comfort and they had to get out of here very soon. His betrothed didn't react in any way, neither words nor thoughts escaped him, but those bloodied hands grasped his broad shoulders and held on tightly. Finally. Bloody fucking finally.  
Silence enveloped them for a long while, more time passed than they could afford and from above, water still fell on and on, slowly drenching them in its mist. Some of the people lying scattered across the black floor groaned from time to time; not all dead, then. Just as fine. Enough had died that Albus had no options left than to come with Gellert who really wished the circumstances to be different. They would just have to work with what they had.   
  
“Would you get on your feet for me, love?" Albus only hid his face in Gellert's neck and shook his head no ever so slightly. He sighed. “Yes, I know you can. You're wet, injured and I need to get you to safety."  
“And you're still an impatient brat," mumbled the other half of his heart, his mind, his all, still making absolutely no move to let go of him. Gellert only just refrained from punching or kissing him senseless. Somehow, they managed to stumble onto their feet together without losing skin contact, and Albus, brave, brave Albus, looked up. A fool would have seen the soul breaking behind those bright eyes.    
“I might have overstepped..."  
“Overstepped? My dear, you blew up the Ministry and half of the East End. I pity my not having been there." He should have known that humour was the wrong way to go. Far above their heads, the earth groaned with the strain of not just collapsing in on them, the very walls seemed to cave one by one, glass falling like glittering snowflakes where windows couldn't withhold the forces pushing and pulling at their frames. Albus' gaze darkened.   
“Now that would have been a picture just like old times. Aberforth, you and me, fighting. I wonder who will die next time."  
“So it was you and him, then. He provoked you? What brought this on? Forgive me, my love, I just have to know what happened so that I can heal you properly. And we might have to fix a bit of this mess first," Gellert gently suggested and took one of Albus' long hands into his own, interlinking their fingers, driving his point home. There was no separating them now. A kiss to his temple meant to soothe, but Albus glanced away too quickly and nodded in a stiff manner. All it took to break his rational resolve was one accidental step in Aberforth's direction, a foot bumped against an unmoving arm and there came the tears. He stumbled back as if his younger brother had hit him square in the chest. Gellert scowled; no matter the story behind this, had he been still alive, he would have died tonight at Gellert's hand. A dozen times over.   
  
“I know that this looks... very bad, but we have to get to work. Your secrecy is a curse of yesterday already, but we can still save London."  
“How?" Albus whispered and only just suppressed a violent shudder, but they knew each other far too well for masks and hidden truths. He took a look around, made a few faltering steps in a seemingly random direction, shook his head. “Useless,” he mumbled and closed his eyes in concentration. The hardness in his fine features melted and a wand came flying into his outstretched hand, unbroken. Gellert marvelled at his composure, at the utter silence with which he smothered his crying, his iron control. With the two of them together as planned previously to the big disaster, Albus never would have broken apart. Not this much. Never. Not on his watch.  
“Oh, but I'm proud of you..."  
“Shut it, Gellert, I'm not up for your games right now. You said something about doing good for once, then help me. And how in the world did you get in here?" Wordlessly, Gellert pointed up without looking away. Eye contact alone was too thrilling to break it. A heartbeat, two, three, four, and Albus stared at him with his mouth agape, looked up, stared at him again. Who wouldn't have grinned at such triumph?   
“Oh, don't strain yourself, love, I'll manage just fine, don't you think?" A wink and Gellert let their hands slip apart, in need of his other arm for casting the spells necessary. If Albus hesitated a moment longer, well, he'd preen in the light of his attention silently. Everything was better than reminding him of what he had done now and Gellert wasn't beneath using blatant flirting.  
  
Silently, they separated the work that had to be done: while Albus found an outlet for his violent grief in throwing rocks around, putting up stabilizing charms in layers thicker than castle walls and gluing more pitch black stone on top of them, Gellert checked for survivors amongst the bodies lying all around them as if they had been blown back by a bomb erupting in the middle. Those that still breathed, he sent directly into St. Mungo's by hastily created Portkeys made of necklaces, shoes, glasses. And those that didn't he simply left behind. He wasn't the digger of their graves and neither was he a priest, at least not of their religion. In the end, the survivors outnumbered the dead, but only just. Being hit by a force of magic of Albus' magnitude surely was devastating. Quick deaths, it must have been, heads hitting stone, out as candle flames in a storm.   
When he returned to Albus, the ceiling still wasn't cooperating. Only now did he wonder where that bloody dragon had come from, but that gaping hole where maybe a tunnel to the dungeons might have been located answered the question. Of course. Collapsed magical energy fields, not a soul to watch over the poor thing...   
“You're doing well," he quietly observed with his neck craned at the complicated spell work and raised his own wand. “Let me help you."  
Albus reacted in no other way than synchronizing their movements. Together they closed the hole, the light falling through becoming thinner by the minute. It was a cave now that they were standing in with a much more narrow ceiling, nothing more. A giant, pitch black cave, inhabited by at least twenty corpses, including Aberforth, and the two greatest wizards lost in this ugly world. When all was done and only the rubble left to clean up, not to mention the numerous destroyed offices, cells, Apparating platforms, Gellert turned back to Albus fully and lowered his wand. It felt like looking into a mirror. Albus let his head hang low and sank back onto his knees, hitting rock bottom. The pain, the understanding, the regret… Gellert had been there. Fifteen years ago. Exactly like that. In a forest of northern Germany, not a human soul in a space so vast that nobody had died when he'd let go of his control in piled up anger. Albus obviously never had had this luxury.   
  
“He didn't have to come for me," he finally spoke, long after Gellert threw a casual shield around them to keep out any spectators. The minutes undisturbed were numbered, no doubt, and it might have been interesting to know if the Minister himself was still alive.   
“Aberforth? It surprises me that he stepped in here at all, if I'm entirely honest with you." He kept his voice soft, if a bit ironic, he couldn't help it. The picture before him made even the great Gellert Grindelwald bitter at heart, too familiar the pain, too real the fear of his world going down the drain entirely again. But Albus didn't even flinch when he caressed ripped fabric, healed cuts that didn't bleed too strongly anymore with the gentle swipe of a thumb. Aberforth was lying dead at their feet, eyes closed, dust and dirt on his hands, grime all over his cheap clothes. Gellert had seen this, years ago while dining at the Dumbledore's. When he pulled at Albus' shoulders, he tensed, withstanding.   
“I had a bit of a quarrel with the Minister Evermonde. He'd be just to your liking, I'm sure," he finally said as if speaking to thin air, but he looked up when Gellert snorted.   
“A bit of a quarrel?" With a grand, sweeping gesture he took a step back and stared at his former lover, almost amused to the point of laughing. “A bit of a quarrel! Albus, dear, out with it, what did that creature do or say?"  
Albus quickly looked away and touched Aberforth's still hand instead. A shudder went through him and he kept his gaze trained to his dead brother when answering.   
“He pushed through an emergency legislation forbidding all magicians to help Muggels in the war. The echo of course was an uproar in Muggle-born Ministry employees and he thought he could drag me on his side to... to cut it down. Quite literally. Wartime, Gellert. It makes monsters out of all of us."  
“But half of the Ministry wants you as Minister!" Gellert exclaimed only half surprised, his voice was thrown back and forth by the bent-in walls. Their work wouldn't hold forever and he already suspected Albus of having tied some of the enchantments to his own core permanently which would suck him dry within days.   
“Yes," Albus said, “Yes." And nothing more.  
  
It took a while to get him back onto his feet again and he wasn't done with his tale yet, but they were running out of time fast. Gellert made him look him in the eye by guiding his chin with two fingers, level with his own. Their contact was searching, re-learning, mapping. Catching up on lost time. They'd be doing a lot of that in the days coming, for sure.   
“And that Minister Evermonde had the brilliant idea of tagging your stupid brother along? Made him talk sense into you?"  
“And that... escalated," Albus whispered with a heavy head, sinking back into his embrace, apparently too weak to say no to Gellert. All the better.  
“How did they find out that you had any family at all in the first place, love? Even I wasn't able to locate Aberforth, time and time again."  
“You would have used him in the same way, probably in disguise," Albus mumbled bitterly and hit truth like knives thrown. His internal struggle of disgust, grief, relief was only noticeable in the tensing of his entire lean frame and in the manner in which he turned his face away from Gellert's neck. They were breathing as one, against each other.  
“And I see the fault in that now."  
“Do you? Truly? You rip apart lives so easily, leaving only destruction in your wake. It was all rather harmless while you were only searching for the Hallows, but I’ve been watching you from afar, Gellert. This…” He turned around slowly, let his gaze linger on the killed, the dents in the wall, the absolute mess of blood, water and dusty rubble on the floor. “This,” he concluded, “almost looks like you.”  
“I’d rather believe that I’d have been a bit more subtle about bringing the Ministry to its knees.”  
“You would have not,” Albus denied very firmly, but with a fond undertone that made Gellert hope. Not all was lost.   
“I remember you writing something about teaching the Minister a lesson. Of course your Minister was a different one back then and you were always way too good at talking your way into my pants, but you rather succeeded in that now, didn’t you?” Under the impending sound of distant Apparitions, they stood so very close together, next to Aberforth’s still form with their hands interlinking automatically. Albus was just as unable to tear himself away from Gellert as he himself was, it seemed, and he had to make his decision right this minute. No way around it anymore, no way out, only ahead.   
  
“Gellert… I know what you’re doing. I killed more than twenty people today, including the vice minister and my own brother. The latter, I can call an accident, I didn’t mean to. I really, really didn’t mean to.” Eyes cast down, Albus made no move against a kiss that had been a long way coming, he even leaned into it, but it was over within a few seconds. He pulled away, not fast enough to not let Gellert see his tears, but pull away he did.   
“So something went haywire,” the former guessed without mentioning that Ariana’s death had been an accident, too, and that Albus was still punishing himself for it. A silent nod gave him permission to go on. “Your magic? Your core, slightly damaged by _something_ , perhaps? Emotions running high, accusations that you didn’t deserve flying about like spells, his considerable well of magic without your tight hold on control and finesse… I see.” A bitter laugh escaped Albus with a sob that he quickly cut off. It hurt, oh, it did, almost as bad as the pure magic dancing off his skin previously had done. Gellert was about ready to just grab him and Apparate them out of this cave to let it all come down after them, but the look he got from those bright blue eyes held him back. Self-hatred, enough guilt for a lifetime, laced with love... Always that. Gods, they were useless without each other.   
“I killed both of my siblings, now. Am I not a perfect picture of my father, Gellert? Am I not what they have been saying since I set foot into Hogwarts?”  
“Nonsense! You are so much more than that! Don’t drown in self-pity now, we don’t have time for that. Will you come with me? We’ll be swarmed by Aurors any second now, they probably Apparated into the dungeons to look after a dragon no longer chained down there. Do you want to get sent to Azkaban, spend your precious lifetime in the Northern Sea until I break you out somehow, waste your brilliant mind in withering away?” Albus hid his face in his hands, his chaotic hair slipped forth and formed a stark contrast to his pale skin. Magical exhaustion rendered his nerves too short to be called existent at all, so Gellert had to think and act for the two of them.   
“Maybe I should just… You know I deserve it. I deserve a lifetime in Azkaban and you know it.” He snorted, grabbed both of his shoulders and forced eye contact. There it was, the shimmer of blue that he had fallen in love with years ago. Like hell he’d throw that away again.   
  
“My Albus, dear, you did good today. Don’t look at me like that, listen, think about it! Your example showed that the Ministry isn’t fail-proof, that they’re not always right and that there will always be people to stand up for what is right. You did exactly that. The Minister made a cruel decision, you saw right through him and were thrown into an unfair situation at which you only could have lost. Of course, you still could Apparate to Hogwarts and leave me here, I’ll be out in a heartbeat if I need to.” The last option he almost drawled, his Austrian accent slipping through a bit more heavily than normal. Yes, dammit, he was just as affected by this bullshit and he’d never in a lifetime admit it. But he had failed once, he wouldn’t do so again. Albus screwed his eyes shut and turned his head away just so, breathing, heaving, tears dried for now. They’d come again in floods, later, no doubt, but they would deal with that. Together.   
“In my state of magical instability, I’ve no place at Hogwarts,” Albus finally confessed and Gellert didn’t even have to pretend to be relieved.   
“Yes, _exactly_. So that’s a yes? You’re coming home?”  
“And where is that, Gellert? Where?”  
“Edinburgh, for now,” he replied calmly, let his hands slide down both his arms until their fingers met once more and smiled. He could hear his own pulse thrumming away, louder than the shouts of armed men coming at them. One look around should have told them that they didn’t even have the sliver of a chance. A heartbeat of eye contact passed, Albus gave a short nod. Mind made up, features harder than ever before, accepting of his fate. Finally.   
“Then take me home.”


End file.
